Edward Adrift

by Craig Lancaster

  Now I’m about twenty-four hours away, and I feel scared.

  That flummoxes me. It’s hard to know how much of that feeling is because I’ll be seeing my friends again and how much is because of everything else. I don’t like not knowing things.

  TECHNICALLY SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011

  I wake up at 2:37 a.m., and I’m discombobulated (I love the word “discombobulated”) and short of breath. As my eyes adjust to the absence of light, I stop fighting for air, and my heart rate slows. I remember now where I am.

  I had a weird dream.

  In it my father was alive. I frequently have dreams in which my father is alive and with me. Usually, he is showing me how to do something or telling me something he thinks I ought to know. I never dreamed about my father while he was alive. At least, I don’t remember doing so. I’ve dreamt about him often in the three years, one month, and eleven days since he died. It’s odd, but it’s also comforting, so I do not complain.

  This dream was strange in that what happened in it also happened in real life, many years ago. I was with my father in a bar in a little town called Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. I was nine years old. I remember that because the Dallas Cowboys had beaten the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XII earlier that year. A few months later, after school was finished, my mother let me go with my father to Cheyenne Wells, where he was going to oversee some work on the oil pumps that the company he worked for owned there. That’s how we ended up at the bar.

  We were sitting on stools. My father was on my left, engaged in an earnest bullshit session with the bartender, and on my right was this old man with long, white whiskers. He had his hands clenched together, and he kept bringing them to his face and peering into them with one eye.

  This sparked my curiosity.

  “What do you have in there?” I asked him.

  “It’s a mouse. Would you like to see it?”

  I didn’t believe him. A mouse could not fit into the small space between his clenched hands. Even if it could, it would probably try to bite the man. I thought he was playing games with me.

  “No, I don’t want to see your mouse.”

  I don’t remember everything—I can’t even guess when the last time was that I thought about this—but I do know this went on for some time, with the old man looking into his hands and inviting me to take a look. I declined every time.

  At some point, I got up to go to the bathroom and pee—because I was a young boy with a small bladder, not because I was medicated like I am now. When I emerged from the bathroom, the old man was waiting for me, and he grabbed me by the wrist and tried to hurt me.

  I screamed for my father, and he got there in what seemed like a millisecond, although I know that’s impossible. He grabbed the old man’s hand and my wrist and yanked them apart, and then he threw an elbow into the old man’s chest, knocking him to the floor.

  “Get the hell out of here,” my father said, and the old man did.

  After the old man scrambled away, my father turned to me. He looked concerned. “Teddy, are you all right?”

  I nodded. I couldn’t say anything.

  My father held out his hand.

  “Come on, Son.”

  He led me back to the bar and told the bartender to set me up with a fresh root beer.

  I have to be honest about my father. He was an inscrutable man sometimes. We got along great when I was a young boy, but in later years, especially when I was a teenager and even older, we fought a lot. There were times when he was cruel to me, like when he directed Jay L. Lamb to write me nasty letters upbraiding (I love the word “upbraiding”) me for what he perceived to be my failures.

  When he died, which was quite sudden and unexpected, we had not resolved many of our disagreements, and that left me regretful.

  Dr. Buckley said that as I adjusted to my father’s death, the good memories would replace the bad and perhaps I could have a relationship with him in death that I could not manage while he was alive. This has been true for the most part, but not entirely. The truth is, I alternate between happy memories, ones where it almost seems as if he’s by my side, and regretful ones, where we’re still fighting and still finding it impossible to understand each other. The one constant, regardless of memory, is that I wish he were here for real. As I lie on my back in bed, staring into the dark, the blanket pulled up around me, I think that I have never wanted him here more than I do right now.

  If my father had been with me yesterday, he would have protected me from the intemperate young man in Bozeman. If he were here right now, he might be able to tell me why I am suddenly so scared of figuring out how my life is supposed to go. I don’t know anymore. I used to have a job and friends whom I saw every day, or nearly so. I used to have routines and things I could rely on. I don’t have many of those things anymore. I don’t know how to replace what I’ve lost. I don’t know if it’s even possible.

  I would want to tell my father this, but I also would want him to know that I am hanging in there. My father admired people who hung in there. Troy Aikman was his favorite football player ever because he seemed to be fearless, even when other teams were hurting him bad. I am not fearless. I cannot even pretend to be. But I am hanging in there. I’m trying to make sense of things. I think that’s why I’m on this trip. Yes, Kyle is in trouble, and I want to help him if I can. Yes, I want to see Donna and Victor again. But maybe I want something for me, too, such as not feeling so adrift. That seems selfish, but I think it’s OK. I think my father would think it’s OK, too.

  I’m glad I could think about this, even if it did interrupt my sleep.

  OFFICIALLY SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011

  From the logbook of Edward Stanton:

  Time I woke up today: 2:37 a.m. to deal with the dream about my father. 7:38 a.m. for good. The 208th time all year I’ve been awake at this time.

  High temperature for Saturday, December 10, 2011, Day 344: 43 (according to the Butte newspaper)

  Low temperature for Saturday, December 10, 2011: 27

  Precipitation for Saturday, December 10, 2011: 0.00 inches

  Precipitation for 2011: 19.40 inches

  New entries:

  Exercise for Saturday, December 10, 2011: 47-minute brisk walk after dinner.

  Miles driven Saturday, December 10, 2011: 223.4

  Addendum: While I had a bowl of oatmeal this morning at the complimentary continental breakfast—where I consumed all of my medicine—I thought a lot about the dream I had early this morning and my fear about where my life is headed. There is nothing I can do to magically make the fear go away. There is no such thing as magic. Maybe the fear means something. Maybe it is guiding me toward something. This is all more touchy-feely than I prefer to be, but perhaps I will stress out about it less if I believe I’m headed toward something new and important. I have nothing against belief, although I will concede that it is not nearly as good as fact.

  I’ve also thought a lot about being punched by the intemperate young man in Bozeman. I’m going to try not to stress out about that, either.

  I have a long purplish-blue streak that runs vertically along the right side of my nose, and the fleshy area under my right eye is turning black. What a whipdick that intemperate young man is.

  Before I leave, I do something smart—I wait for an hour after I’ve taken my medicine before loading up the car and leaving Butte. In that time, I pee twice, which should mitigate (I love the word “mitigate”) my having to pee while in transit. I still manage to gas up and be on the road by 10:02 a.m. My fill-up requires 10.023 gallons of unleaded gasoline at $3.1499 a gallon, for a total of $31.57. By my figures, I got 22.3 miles per gallon yesterday. My projections were way off, and that disappoints me. There is just no way to fully anticipate your costs when you’re at the mercy of oil companies.

  It’s a cold, clear morning. The external thermostat on my Cadillac DTS, which displays on the control panel inside, says it’s twelve degrees outside. The external thermostat on this car is n
ot as reliable as the official temperature-gauging machinery used by the National Weather Service, but it is sufficient for my driving needs.

  As I pass a weigh station, where the transportation department checks the paperwork and cargo size of large trucks and other commercial vehicles, I remember sometimes being with my father when he would take long drives like the one I am on. He hated weigh stations. His hostility didn’t come from direct personal experience. Only once did I ever see my father driving a large truck, and that was in November 1974, when he bought an International Paystar 500 in Denver and drove it to Midland, Texas, so it could be outfitted with a drilling rig. My mother sent me along with him on that trip. I was five years old. Their marriage was in trouble, although I didn’t know that at the time. I don’t recall that we had any difficulty with weigh stations on that trip. I’d remember it if it had happened.

  Anyway, my father hated weigh stations. Every time we would pass one, he would say something like “money-grubbing assholes” or “two-bit quasi-cops.” I asked him one time why he hated weigh stations so much, and he said the people in them liked to give a hard time to the drilling crews he supervised. He told me about this one time when a driller named Jim Quillen got stopped at a weigh station near Grand Junction, Colorado. The weigh station personnel came out and checked the paperwork on his big drilling rig and a smaller truck with a water tank on the back. They climbed onto the cab of the drilling rig, measured the overhang on the mast, and told Jim Quillen that it went too far over the snout of the truck.

  “Quillen was a hothead, but he was smart, too,” my father said. “He knew that if he kicked up a fight, they’d just shut him down permanent. So you know what he did, Teddy?”

  I did not know what he did, and I told my father so.

  “He brought that water truck around front of the rig and backed it right up till they were almost touching. Then he lashed the trucks together, and he hauled out of there. No more overhang. Quillen said that when they went by the shack, those guys’ mouths were open to the floor. Serves ’em right, the fuckers.”

  My father told me this story and he laughed so hard that his face turned red. I could tell that it was one of his favorite stories. It was a pretty good story, I guess. I don’t rate these things, but it’s not the best story I’ve ever heard. All the same, I’m thankful that he told it to me, so I could remember it now and think of him.

  The route I’m traveling, Interstate 15 South into Idaho, takes me through some beautiful country, and twice I pull off to take a picture along the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. I’ve never been much of a picture taker. I tend to remember so many things that I don’t need the pictures to remind me, but I must concede that I’ve been glad to have all the pictures of Donna and Kyle and Victor that have been taken and given to me in the past few years. When I’m feeling especially lonely, I bring them out and remember the good times when they were taken. These pictures from this trip, which I’m taking with my bitchin’ iPhone and sending to my “cloud,” might serve a similar purpose for me sometime. Part of me wishes I could leave the interstate and do some exploring. Virginia City, which was the territorial capital of Montana, is not too far away. Neither is Bannack, which was the territorial capital before Virginia City. I learned about these places in my Montana history class in the eighth grade at Will James Middle School, and I would like to see them someday, but I have hundreds of miles to go and can’t deviate (I love the word “deviate”) that far.

  My predeparture peeing program seems to have paid dividends. Before I cross over into Idaho, I stop only once to drain my main vein and make my bladder gladder, and that’s in Dillon, 66.1 miles into my trip. I drive into the parking lot of an Exxon station and half-jog inside. I’ve planned well. Unlike yesterday, I don’t feel as though I’m about to burst, and so I’m able to get to the bathroom without drawing attention to myself by holding my tallywhacker. Two minutes and seven seconds later, after I’ve washed my hands thoroughly, I pay the store cashier for a pack of sugar-free gum and I’m headed back to the car.

  At 11:28 a.m., I am on the interstate and headed for Idaho.

  This is a good day already.

  I’m 24.7 miles beyond Dillon when my bitchin’ iPhone makes a noise at me.

  I pick it up, and this message is on the screen: Whats up. LOL.

  That doesn’t make sense.

  With one hand on the wheel, and glancing repeatedly between my phone and the road, I type back: Who is this?

  I put my right hand back on the steering wheel and try to keep my eyes focused on the road, but curiosity is stronger than my desire to drive in the recommended safe manner. I keep moving my eyes so I can see the phone’s screen.

  Finally, another message comes through: The cops. LOL. Turn around and go home. LOL.

  I’m really flummoxed now. Again, I split my attention and spell out a reply: How did you get this number? And what’s so funny?

  I’m not stupid; I know that LOL means “laughing out loud.” I also know what ROFLMAO means, and I have figured out most of the things that are known as emoticons. I do not like them. Internet culture is destroying the way we communicate with each other.

  I look down again at my phone, waiting for a response. When I look up, I’ve drifted too far to the right, and I have to pull hard on the steering wheel to keep the Cadillac DTS from leaving the road. That was a close one. My heart pounds.

  In comes the next message: I know everything. LOL.

  As I reach down to respond yet again, blue lights fill my rearview mirror. A Montana Highway Patrol car is pulling me over.

  Well, slap my ass and call me Sally. That’s just a saying, by the way. Scott Shamwell used to say that sometimes. I don’t want my ass slapped, and I prefer to be called by my own name, which is Edward.

  I pull over and wait for the officer.

  After the patrolman gives me a $250 ticket for reckless driving—and scolds me for texting while driving, saying that I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself or somebody else or worse, which seems silly to me because what could be worse than killing or being killed?—I remain in my turned-off car on the side of the interstate.

  Who is this, really? I type. Don’t lie.

  A few moments pass. Kyle. LOL.

  You just cost me $250 and got me in big trouble with the Montana Highway Patrol.

  LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!

  The taunting messages from Kyle keep coming. He tells me to be a “gangsta” and not pay my ticket. He tells me that the Dallas Cowboys suck and that the Denver Broncos and Tim Tebow rule. He tells me that he’s going to whip my butt on all his Wii games, which is probably true; I never was very good at Wii. He tells me that his parents are stupid and that his school is full of “douches.”

  I watch the messages as they continue to come through as I drive, which I’m probably not supposed to do, but I can’t help it. I’ll be stopping to eat in American Falls, which is 170.6 miles away, and I can answer his many text messages when I get there. In the meantime, I will monitor them.

  At 12:37, however, I receive a message that causes me to turn off the bitchin’ iPhone.

  Dont be all stupid when your here.

  I blink twice when I see it. The words sting me. Kyle, as much as anybody, should know that I’m not stupid. I explained my condition to him soon after I met him, and I know Donna has told him about it, and still he saw fit to message my bitchin’ iPhone and call me stupid. I’m not stupid at all. I’m very smart. I know a lot of things, and I know how to do a lot of things. The world sometimes doesn’t make sense to me. Other people regularly flummox me. I’m bad with crowds, and I don’t know what to do when people are emotional, but none of that means I’m stupid. The irony is now I’m the emotional one. Kyle’s message makes me want to stop this car and beat on it with a hammer.

  Also, Kyle has some nerve calling me stupid when he doesn’t know the difference between “your” and “you
’re.”

  I try to imagine what Dr. Buckley would tell me to do, which is a poor substitute for actually hearing from her. For one thing, it forces me to use conjecture, and I’ve been clear all along that conjecture can be a dangerous thing. I guess I have no alternative now.

  I suppose Dr. Buckley would say that Kyle is a boy, and boys can be cruel. She might also say that his ugliness toward me is just a misplaced manifestation (I love the word “manifestation”) of his frustration with himself. Dr. Buckley often said that when we say nasty things about other people, we’re really criticizing something in them that we don’t like in ourselves. I’m not sure I ever fully understood what she meant by that, but taking that and applying it to Kyle somehow makes it easier to process. I know Kyle is having a tough time in his new town and at his new school. Maybe people are calling him stupid. Maybe he’s putting that on me so it’s not on him any longer. That’s a lot of maybes, which makes me uncomfortable.

  Finally, I remember Dr. Buckley once telling me that the children who would make fun of me when I was young were, in many cases, simply dealing with differences the way children often do. Children are perceptive about differences, and they sometimes fall victim to a sort of mob mentality where a lack of conformity is identified and punished. It saddens me to think that this might now describe Kyle, because up until this point, he and I have never let our differences—like our age—keep us from being good friends. When he and Donna and Victor left Billings 190 days ago, he hugged me in their old driveway, and I hugged him back, which is hard for me. Now he’s speaking (writing) to me this way. What if we can’t be friends anymore? I don’t think that’s something I want to contemplate.